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For some, it will call up wicked thoughts of Pat Robertson and a very pricey eBay voodoo doll. For others, images of Brad Pitt, Muhammad Ali and Bruce Springsteen manning a bank of telephones will spring to mind. And still others will remember the aftermath of the earthquakes in Haiti as a time when the whole world was talking about ten-dollar text messages and donations made to an organization called Yéle.

But years from now, long after camera crews have left the Caribbean for another disaster in a different corner of the globe, I hope I look back on what happened in the early days of 2010 and remember the photograph of a smiling young Haitian boy as he was being pulled from beneath the remains of his broken country following eight days of unimaginable terror.

And more importantly, I hope I remember the words of that young boy as he reflected upon his rescue.

"I smiled because I was free," he said, matter-of-factly. "I smiled because I was alive."